Leipzig: Coins worth €350,000 stolen from museum

[chrisild]

More than 500 precious coins were stolen from the Stadtgeschichtliches Museum in Leipzig, Saxony (DE) earlier this year. Now the investigators have a suspect: a bookbinder who until recently worked at the museum.

The Historical Museum has a collection of about 25,000 coins - except than 576 pieces are gone. The thief was obviously competent: Not only did he know what he wanted (and planned to sell), he also did not simply grab them and ran. Over a longer period of time he took precious coins out of the museum depot but replaced them with other pieces.

This way the losses did not get noticed during regular inventory checks. The thefts were discovered almost accidentally, by somebody who saw one of the coins offered online and knew that it was part of the museum collection.

Currently the museum is still checking the total value of what is missing - €348,000 so far. 100 of the coins are a loan from the IHK (chamber of industry and commerce) by the way.

And how was the suspect found? Apparently he is better at stealing than at selling. The man also used his office computer at the museum to sell "his" coins ...

(Story in German)

Christian

[Figleaf]

There are several lessons in the story.

Good collectors visit museums and pay respect to the coins there by having a good look at them.

Bad collectors are stupid in at least one respect.

Museums should honour good collectors and remember that trust is good, making sure is better.

I hope the story will have a happy end.

Peter

[chrisild]

Yes, I hope so too. So far I have not read anything about what coins were stolen and their whereabouts. But I found it amazing that this one person recognized one coin as part of the museum's collection. Hope he will at least get a nice Thank You card along with a present ...

Christian